A Handful of Time

A Handful of Time. By Kit Pearson. Penguin, 2008. 192 pages. PB $7.99 ISBN 978-0143056386

Summary: Patricia is sent by her parents to Edmonton to spend the summer with her cousins at their cottage. The summer away from home, enables her parents to finalize the plans for their divorce, but initially turns into Patricia’s worst nightmare: her cousins make fun of her, and her aunts and uncles feel sorry for her. Alone she finds an old watch under a floorboard. Winding it takes her back in time to 1952, when her twelve-year-old mother summered at the same spot.

Critical Review: A Handful of Time’s worth shines by expertly dealing with the pain that divorce has on children. At first Patricia fears that neither parent wants to live with her, but she soon learns that both desperately want to be given that privilege. Pearson’s prose shimmers on the page. Readers entering into Patricia’s summer will leave touched, secure in the knowledge that whatever pains them, hope remains around the bend. Escaping into the past can be helpful, but is only a temporary cure. There are people in their lives that care, who will do whatever they can to help make their lives better.

Genre: Time-Travel Fiction; Science Fiction; Realistic Fiction

Reading/Interest Level: 9-12 years

Awards: Canadian Library Association Book-of-the-Year-for-Children Award, 1988

Similar Materials: Margaret Buffie’s Who is Frances Rain?; Philippa Pearce’s Tom’s Midnight Garden; Cora Taylor’s The Doll; Cynthia Voigt’s Building Blocks

Subjects/Themes: Divorce; Summer Vacations; Cottage; Alberta, Canada; Time-Travel; Families

 

Character Names: Patricia; Ruth Reid (Patricia’s mother, a T.V. broadcaster); Harris Potter (Patricia’s father, a journalist); Aunt Ginnie (Patricia’s mother’s sister); Uncle Doug (Ginnie’s husband); Kelly, Trevor, Rosemary (Ginnie and Doug’s children, and Patricia’s cousins); Uncle Rod and Aunt Karen; Christie and Bruce Reid (Rod and Karen’s children, and Patricia’s cousins); Nan (Patricia’s maternal grandmother)

Author Website: http://www.kitpearson.com/index.html

Brief Annotation: A twelve-year old girl travels back to the summer when he mother was twelve years old.